Teen Who Posted Threat to Shoot Up School Was Just Joking, Say Cops

A 15-year-old boy who allegedly posted pictures of guns and dead bodies and made threats toward schoolsin Los Angeles County, California, has been deemed not a threat, says police. The teen was reportedly arrested after he began posting threats online to shoot up a school as well as threatening women and minorities. Police searched his house and found no weapons. They determined the posts were just a "prank."

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Police say that the teen "actually had no intention of carrying out these threats" and wrote the posts to get a reaction from his friends.

While it's good that authorities took this seriously enough to investigate, it's a little disconcerting that he's been deemed not a threat and then -- what? Does anything happen to him? Clearly, he has some issues.

This is similar to the teen who posted online that a real life "purge" -- inspired by the movie The Purge -- would take place in Louisville, Kentucky. Apparently he thought it would be "funny" to post warnings of a real life purge to take place in town. The posts were reportedly accompanied by a picture of a masked villain. Wow. Funny! (Sarcasm.)

While the purge posts are a bit more clearly a prank, given that they were accompanied by a still from the movie, the threats about shooting up a school are pretty disturbing.

But teens do crazy things. I remember doing a few myself, though certainly I never joked about killing people. Where is the line drawn between a teen who takes his or her need for attention too far, and the one who may be sending out serious signals that he or she is a budding psychopath?

I would at least hope that the parents of these teens aren't dismissing these posts are just pranks and will let their kids know this kind of behavior goes beyond prank. Hopefully there is some discipline going on, not to mention getting these kids into therapy?

Do you think teen pranks like this take it too far or are they just being teens?